I'd heard mixed reviews of Greenleaf kits in the past, but the true terror of my undertaking didn't really set in until last night at three in the morning, as I cut myself on the edge of a doorframe, trying to slot together a wall and a section of floor that just really, really didn't want to slot together. I'm crafty but I have little to no experience with kits- usually, I work from scratch- so I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into this.
I looked around online but couldn't find any guides or even more than a handful of close-up, in-progress photos of the build. So here's my attempt to fill that void, and offer some insights that will help novice building their first dollhouse kit (not just a Greenleaf!).
Getting Ready
The first thing you should do (that I utterly failed at) is make sure you have enough room to begin your dollhouse build. I took over most of the floor of my living room, and even after clearing out some of the furniture I've found pieces of the dollhouse creeping out into the hall. If you have the space to dedicate a full room to your dollhouse, this build is going to be a lot easier. If you're working in a house with rambunctious kids or animals like me, you're also going to want to make sure the delicate pieces of your dollhouse are protected. Remember, this dollhouse is going to take a long time to build, especially if you're doing it around work/school/kids, so make sure wherever you set up can be dollhouse-land for a while. You may also want to think ahead to how you're going to display your dollhouse- do you need a stand for it? Are you going to build it on a piece of wood, or place it on a table later?
The next step is to gather your materials. Greenleaf has a list of recommended materials in its instructions which for the most part is pretty solid (masking tape, emery boards, ruler, etc.) but they do make one HUGE mistake. As far as I can tell, all Greenleaf kits come with the instruction to use a hot glue gun for assembly. Do not do this. Hot glue may seem easier to work with, but if you want a dollhouse that's going to last, it's a terrible idea. Not only can some hot glues stain, drip and damage the wood, but the house will over time warp and pop apart when the hot glue remelts. Most dollhouse websites seem to advocate tacky glue for budget kits, and so I went for the classic Aleene's Tacky Glue, which I'm really happy with.
There are a few other materials I found useful that aren't on the Greenleaf list. In addition to masking tape, clothespins and binder clips are great for holding together glued pieces, or just for putting something together to see how it's going to look. I also had several plastic bins nearby to keep stray pieces of wood in, and a thin rag to wipe away excess glue (a wet paintbrush could also work). The instructions also call for an X-Acto knife, but I just grabbed a kitchen knife because I'm out of usable X-Acto blades, and that seemed to work well for me. Also note: this kit does not come with hinges or doorknobs. The instructions say to just glue the doors in place, but if you're like me, you know that won't cut it. Ordering knobs and hinges totally slipped my mind before, but I'll be doing that shortly.
A note about painting: Many kit-builders say you should paint or stain the pieces before you put them together. While I wish I had painted the doors and windows before assembling them, because they're so delicate, I would not recommend painting the rest of the pieces from a Greenleaf kit before assembling them. I can't imagine assembling it in a way that wouldn't damage the paint in the process, especially as painting the pieces could interfere with the fit of tabs and notches that hold the dollhouse together. Plus, you'd have to remove all the pieces from their numbered sheets, and since so many of the pieces are near-identical, you'd have a headache on your hands trying to sort out which pieces were which. In addition, much of the wood is too low-quality to stain nicely, and in my dollhouse at least, the floors would have no chance of staining to the same color, the woods used are so different. I'll be giving my whole house a white primer coat after it's assembled.
There are a few other materials I found useful that aren't on the Greenleaf list. In addition to masking tape, clothespins and binder clips are great for holding together glued pieces, or just for putting something together to see how it's going to look. I also had several plastic bins nearby to keep stray pieces of wood in, and a thin rag to wipe away excess glue (a wet paintbrush could also work). The instructions also call for an X-Acto knife, but I just grabbed a kitchen knife because I'm out of usable X-Acto blades, and that seemed to work well for me. Also note: this kit does not come with hinges or doorknobs. The instructions say to just glue the doors in place, but if you're like me, you know that won't cut it. Ordering knobs and hinges totally slipped my mind before, but I'll be doing that shortly.
A note about painting: Many kit-builders say you should paint or stain the pieces before you put them together. While I wish I had painted the doors and windows before assembling them, because they're so delicate, I would not recommend painting the rest of the pieces from a Greenleaf kit before assembling them. I can't imagine assembling it in a way that wouldn't damage the paint in the process, especially as painting the pieces could interfere with the fit of tabs and notches that hold the dollhouse together. Plus, you'd have to remove all the pieces from their numbered sheets, and since so many of the pieces are near-identical, you'd have a headache on your hands trying to sort out which pieces were which. In addition, much of the wood is too low-quality to stain nicely, and in my dollhouse at least, the floors would have no chance of staining to the same color, the woods used are so different. I'll be giving my whole house a white primer coat after it's assembled.
Starting to build
I propped up the lid of the box against the wall as a reference image, and got to work. The first thing you're going to want to do is find any pieces that have popped out and label them with which sheet of wood they came from, and using the schematic sheet provided, the name of the component. You don't want to throw out an important piece because you mistook it for scrap! I actually saved all my scrap pieces in a shoebox- you never know when you might need to fabricate a new piece, and I didn't want to risk getting rid of anything I might need later.
The first step in the instructions is to assemble all the windows. Now if you're smart (unlike me), this is where you'd paint all of the window components before assembling them. These are going to be a huuuuuge pain for me to paint later, so save yourself the time and at least paint the sashes white first. As you can see in the below picture, the window plastic is super staticky and everything will stick to it- tiny wood splinters, dust, cat hair, glue drips, you name it.
That's another thing- this wood is super, super splintery. Sanding it helps a little, but more often than not, it just degrades the wood further, especially on the smaller, delicate pieces. Emery boards are a lifesaver here, as they can fit into small places sandpaper can't reach and have a much gentler touch. The splinter-iness is also a problem when it comes to popping pieces out of the wooden sheets. Since this is a budget, die-cut (punch-out) set, not all of the pieces have been fully cut out of the sheets, which means you're going to be prying them out with your knife (not fun). I didn't have a lot of trouble at first, but as I started punching out smaller pieces for the window trim and large pieces from the thick sheets of wall and floor pieces, I had huge problems with the wood splintering (and getting stuck in my fingers), changing its shape and sometimes breaking into pieces. Structurally these pieces could be fixed with tacky glue, but I'm worried about how I'm going to cover up some of the cosmetic defects. I was definitely disappointed in the quality of this kit.
On the upside, the window treatments really make this house special. I've included a close-up of the whole assembly above, which is my best approximation of how to apply the window pediments and trim, and I think it looks great. I do wish the windows had been more similar to the windows on the original Simes house this kit is based on (scroll down for more information on that), and that's a change I probably would have made to this kit had I been more confident in my abilities starting out. Another change I would have made is with this door, seen above right. The construction of it is nice (if maybe a little plain), and while I do like the stained glass windows (they look so much like the windows of a house I stayed in when I was very young), I'm not sure they quite match what I'm going for with this house. Of course I'm not going to rip apart the doors or their matching stained glass dormer windows now, but I might be replacing them with something a little more ornate in the future, maybe drawing the stained glass patterns myself.
A quick note about the door casings: They do not want to attach smoothly to the walls, at all. You will definitely need to tape or clamp them into place.
After attaching the windows and door casings, the walls went up. I was actually surprised at how quickly this kit went from being a couple of slabs of wood to, well, a dollhouse. That doesn't mean the process was painless, however. Since the floor pieces and center partition are cut out of thicker sheets of wood, they are less likely to be cut all the way through, which means you're going to be doing a lot of work with your knife. Many of the tabs on these floor pieces came out misshapen, and cutting the notches for the tabs to fit into was a nightmare. They didn't seem to be pre-cut much at all, and trying to pry those tiny pieces of wood out caused a lot of damage to the notches. This is another point where the emery board was a lifesaver, as you can slide it into those little holes and sand out all the splinters you've created.
I was already pretty annoyed by having to individually cut out each notch in the floor pieces, but slotting the three floors and the center partition together was a total nightmare. It's technically possible to do (these pictures are proof), but it required a lot of muscle (this is where I cut myself) and I had to bend the wood near to its breaking point. I was really careful to sand all the slots ahead of time, but what it comes down to is just that the slots are poorly designed. Once you've managed to slot it together, shoving the tabs in place is even more difficulty, as of course the tabs have become splintered during the slotting process and now won't fit into the holes/notches they're supposed to fit into. I used all my muscle, tried to sand down the tabs further, and even taped the walls and floors together tightly, but the damage was done. Several of these pieces came out of the box hopelessly warped, so I my expectation that the walls and floors would meet up snugly wasn't very realistic. The gaps aren't huge, but they are annoying. I've bought some wood filler for the inside seams and I'm hoping the outside seams will get covered by trim and siding.
You can see in the above pictures some of the damage that resulted from trying to slot together the floors and center partition. It's nothing that can't be fixed with a little sanding and some wallpaper, but it means that I can't just paint or stain these areas and have them look nice. I am going for a kind of distressed look with this dollhouse, but this kind of goes beyond that.
I'm taking a break for a few days before I tackle the next step in the instructions (the dreaded staircases!) but I can't stop thinking about the flaws with this kit and what I'd like to change.
What next?
Here's the Greenleaf Dollhouses photo of The Lily side-by-side with a 1970s-era photo of the Simes House built in 1863 in Manomet, Massachusetts. The Lily was based on the Simes house, and while the green-and-pink scheme on The Lily is cute, I'm not sure it's for me. As for the Simes house, I absolutely love the all-white with black accents paint scheme, the fancier trim, the arch details in the porch and the widow's walk you can see on top of the house. These are all details I think I can translate fairly easily to my dollhouse (though I am a bit worried about cutting a hole in the roof for access to the widow's walk). I'm also going to be taking some interior styling cues from historical pictures and the pictures of the Simes house's recent restoration.
I'm actually really glad this kit isn't working perfectly, because it's giving me the freedom + inspiration to explore things I might not have considered before. Expect more construction and design updates soon!
